The short answer
No. There is no free HPI check, and there never has been. "hpi check®" is a paid product sold by HPI Limited, and the name is a registered trade mark. The cheapest thing HPI sells is its Basic check at £9.99; its full check is £19.99 (prices from home.hpicheck.com, read 23 September 2026). HPI's own homepage puts it bluntly: it recommends avoiding any company advertising a free hpi check.
What people usually mean by "HPI check" is a vehicle history check: has this car got finance owing on it, has it been written off, is it stolen, has the mileage been wound back. Some of the data that goes into that answer is public and free. The parts that protect your money are held on private databases that charge for every lookup, which is why nobody gives them away.
This page lists what you can get for nothing, where to get it, what you cannot, and what a paid check costs in 2026.
- "HPI check" is a brand, not a category. hpi check® is HPI Limited's product: £9.99 Basic, £19.99 full. Any other provider's report, including ours, is a vehicle history check, not an HPI check.
- Free from GOV.UK: full MOT history with the mileage recorded at every test, next MOT due date, tax status and expiry, SORN status, first registration date, engine, fuel type, CO2 and export status.
- Free from Carhealth: make, model and colour, full MOT history, tax status and due date, and every recorded mileage reading, in one view. No card, no sign-up.
- Never free, from anyone: outstanding finance, insurance write-off category, police stolen marker, number of previous keepers and plate changes. Those come from licensed databases that charge per search.
- A paid check costs from £3.99 to £39.99 depending on the provider and what is included. A full Carhealth report is £19.99, or from £9.99 a report on bundles and the weekly plan.
- The sensible order: run the free checks on every car you shortlist, then pay for a full check on the one or two you are serious about.
Start with the free check
Enter the registration and you will see the make, model and colour, the full MOT history, the tax status and due date, and every mileage reading on record, without paying or signing up. If the car has a problem that shows in the free data, a long MOT gap, a mileage that goes backwards, an expired tax, you will know before you spend a penny.
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Why "free HPI check" does not exist
HPI Limited, part of Solera, describes itself as having sold provenance checks in the UK for the best part of a century, and hpi check® is its registered trade mark. The words have drifted into everyday use the way "Hoover" did, but the product has not. When a website offers a "free HPI check", one of three things is happening:
- It is offering the free public data (MOT history, tax status) and calling it an HPI check to catch the search. The free data is real; the label is not.
- It is offering a free registration lookup that shows you the make and model, then charges to reveal anything that matters.
- It is not offering anything at all and wants your email address.
None of these is an hpi check®, and none of them includes the finance, write-off or stolen records that the phrase implies. HPI's homepage says it recommends avoiding companies advertising free hpi vehicle checks, and on that point HPI and we agree.
What is genuinely free, and where
| Information | Free source | What you get | Source, date |
|---|---|---|---|
| MOT history | GOV.UK "Check the MOT history of a vehicle" | Every test since 2005 (cars, vans, motorcycles): pass or fail, the mileage recorded at each test, what failed and any minor problems, when the next MOT is due, and downloadable certificates. Tests in England, Scotland and Wales show where each test was done if you have the 11-digit V5C number. | gov.uk/check-mot-history, page updated 9 Sep 2026 |
| Vehicle details, tax and SORN | GOV.UK "Get vehicle information from DVLA" | Tax rate and expiry, SORN status, MOT expiry, date of first registration, last V5C issue date, year of manufacture, engine size, fuel type, CO2 and emissions status, export status, weight and type approval. | gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla, updated 9 Sep 2026 |
| Safety recalls | GOV.UK "Check if a vehicle has been recalled" | Outstanding manufacturer recalls by make, model or registration. | gov.uk/check-vehicle-recall |
| Whether the car is insured | askMID | Whether a vehicle appears on the Motor Insurance Database. | askmid.com, linked from GOV.UK |
| All of the above in one place, plus make, model and colour | Carhealth free check | Make, model and colour, full MOT history, tax status and due date, recorded mileage readings, in one report, no card or sign-up. | carhealth.co.uk/free-check, 23 Sep 2026 |
Two things the free sources will not tell you, even though they sound as if they should:
- Who owns or has owned the car. GOV.UK says you must write to DVLA to request information about the current or previous registered keeper, and it will only release it with a lawful reason. The number of previous keepers is on the V5C the seller shows you, and on paid checks.
- Whether it has been written off or has finance owing. Neither GOV.UK service holds insurance loss records or finance agreements. That data belongs to insurers and lenders.
What is never free, and why
| Check | Who holds the data | Why it costs money |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding finance | Lenders, via industry finance registers | Lenders register agreements so the car cannot be sold from under them. Access is licensed and charged per enquiry. |
| Insurance write-off (Cat A, B, S, N) | Insurers, via the industry vehicle salvage and theft register (VS&TD, formerly MIAFTR) | Insurers report total-loss settlements to a shared register that is licensed to check providers, not published. |
| Stolen | Police National Computer | Access is restricted to licensed providers under agreement with the police. |
| Mileage discrepancy analysis | Multiple sources cross-checked | The raw MOT mileages are free; the checking against other records (auction, finance, previous checks) is what providers charge for. |
| Previous keepers and plate changes | DVLA, under licence | Keeper history is personal data; DVLA releases it to licensed providers for provenance checks, not to the public. |
| Salvage auction history and photos | Salvage auction houses | Commercial records, licensed per lookup. |
This is the real reason no full check is free: every one of those rows is a paid database query, and the provider pays whether or not you buy. HPI, Total Car Check, carVertical and Carhealth all pay the same kinds of licence fees; the differences between them are price, what they add on top, and what they promise if the data is wrong.
The check that matters most is outstanding finance. If a finance agreement is still live when you buy, the lender's claim on the car survives the sale. You can lose the car and the money. It is the one record you should never take a seller's word for, and it is never in the free data.
What a paid check costs in 2026
Prices read from each provider's UK page on 23 September 2026 (carVertical's pricing page as captured on 22 September). The row shows the cheapest tier on each site that includes the finance, write-off and stolen checks.
| Provider | Cheapest full check | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total Car Check | Gold £9.99 (five for £19.99) | Silver at £3.99 covers write-off and stolen but not finance. £30,000 guarantee on Gold. |
| hpi check | £19.99 | Basic £9.99 excludes write-off details and mileage discrepancies and has no guarantee. Three for £29.99. £30,000 guarantee. |
| Carhealth | £19.99 single, from £9.99 a report on bundles and the weekly plan | Adds an AI reading of the history, a buyer's guide, common faults and salvage auction photos. No data guarantee; full refund where no data is found. |
| carVertical | £39.99 | Built on international sources; three for £62.97. |
For a fuller comparison of what each includes, see our carVertical vs HPI vs Total Car Check comparison.
How to use free and paid checks together
- Shortlist stage, free. Run every car you are considering through the free check or the GOV.UK services. Drop anything with a broken MOT history, mileage that runs backwards, a long SORN, or a tax status that does not match what the seller said.
- Before you travel to see it, paid. Buy a full check on the one or two cars left. Read the finance, write-off and stolen results before you go, so you are not negotiating with a problem you have already fallen for.
- At the viewing. Check the V5C serial number and keeper count against the report, check the VIN on the car against the V5C, and read the MOT advisories against what you can see.
- If the report shows finance, ask for a settlement letter from the lender, or call the lender with the agreement reference. Do not pay until it is cleared.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a free HPI check on GOV.UK?
No. GOV.UK gives you MOT history, tax and SORN status and the vehicle's DVLA details for free. It does not hold finance, write-off or stolen records, and it does not offer an HPI check, which is a private company's product.
Is a free car check the same as a free HPI check?
A free car check from any provider, including Carhealth's, shows the public data: MOT history, tax status, mileage readings and the vehicle's identity. An hpi check® is a paid report from HPI Limited. The two are not the same thing, and any site that says otherwise is using the name to catch a search.
How much does an HPI check cost?
On 23 September 2026, HPI's own site listed its full hpi check® at £19.99, its Basic check at £9.99 and a MultiCheck of three for £29.99.
What is the cheapest way to get finance, write-off and stolen checks?
On the same date, Total Car Check's Gold check at £9.99 was the cheapest single check we found that lists all three. Carhealth's weekly plan (£9.99 a week for two report codes) and Total Car Check's five-pack (£19.99) are the cheapest per car if you are checking several.
Why does Carhealth give some of it away free?
Because the free data costs us nothing to show you and it filters out the cars not worth paying to check. If the free check finds a problem, you have saved £19.99. If it comes back clean, the full report tells you what the free data cannot.
Sources: home.hpicheck.com, totalcarcheck.co.uk/Prices, carvertical.com/gb/pricing, gov.uk/check-mot-history, gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla and carhealth.co.uk, all read on 23 September 2026 except carVertical (22 September). hpi check® is a registered trade mark of HPI Limited. Carhealth is not affiliated with HPI Limited, Total Car Check or carVertical.